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As pointed out to us in the first arc of A Certain Magical Index, memories of events and people and stores factual information are seperate forms of memory. You could forget your entire life and everyone you ever knew without forgetting mathematics or your native language. Muscle memory is even harder to erase, and combined with factual memory, an amnesiac can retain plenty of skills, even if she doesnt remember that she has them.

So, how much battle experience and developed skill have the Wolkenritter retained from incarnation to incarnation?

Did they lose even recent factual/muscle memory with each death and reset? Are they basically only as skilled now as they were at the start of their servitude? Or have the ages made them stronger?

Given that the knights are programs and not flesh and blood people, this is shaky grounds. We already know new knowledge can be programmed into them (Dimensional Transfer, which the booklets note not to be a native Belkan spell) and that knowledge can be stripped away from them (the nature of the book itself).

However, this exact nature as a program also makes it most likely they are born with the optimal knowledge and bodies every time they are born.

One way to approach the problem is to ask whether or not it makes sense that Nanoha, Fate and Arf are challenging Vita, Signum and Zafira.

That's what happened. Sure, the Wolkenritter were holding back and not fighting to kill, but so were the TSAB mages.

If Signum had at least twice her apparent age in battle experience, disarming and KOing Fate wouldn't have been that hard, would it? That one 60 year old AA rank mage defeated Nanoha and Fate at the same time, and she wasn't even as powerful as Signum and Laevantein.

Even if Signum had all of the experience her age might have allowed, as a hunter for the Book of Darkness, most of that experience would have been about defeating an enemy while leaving them alive. She herself says that if you kill something, it no longer has a Core to harvest.

So, if she had many incarnations of experience with fighting to nonlethally defeat enemies (particularly mages and dangerous beasts), holding back against Fate wouldn't matter. It would actually make it easier to beat the young girl.

One way to approach the problem is to ask whether or not it makes sense that Nanoha, Fate and Arf are challenging Vita, Signum and Zafira.

It doesn't. But neither does it make sense that rookie-mage Nanoha took down literally-trained-from-birth Fate. Or why if this degradation (which would have been an ongoing process and would not suddenly appear at A's, mind) was real, why the knights even posed a threat over their various incarnations at all. Besides, even if you use this handwave, it doesn't explain why all the other far more experienced TSAB mages lost as well. It's just a genre thing. Plot device, and one more example of why trying to make sense of it doesn't work: the more plotholes you try to fill, the more holes you dig in the process.

The nanoha/fate thing has been vastly discussed before :3 Not sure I want to go into it, much of it may be ridiculous, but Nanoha (in head battle simulations) had a lot of training, too. Maybe Fate wanted to lose? Hmm

__________________

For those that belittle their favorite characters, complain about pairings, complain about oversexed images. Stop, thank you.

Fear Anxiety Doubt is but a fad. The life of a fad depends entirely on the willingness to support it. Difficulty is a choice. Determination is a path. Your next great idea after your destination is the true goal.

Even if Signum had all of the experience her age might have allowed, as a hunter for the Book of Darkness, most of that experience would have been about defeating an enemy while leaving them alive. She herself says that if you kill something, it no longer has a Core to harvest.

So, if she had many incarnations of experience with fighting to nonlethally defeat enemies (particularly mages and dangerous beasts), holding back against Fate wouldn't matter. It would actually make it easier to beat the young girl.

Some things you musn't forget.

First. That Fate is, by Signum's own admission, a very outstanding warrior, and the Blazing General wasn't the only one recognizing that, Chrono, Yuuno, Tre, Jail(heck, Scaglietty was practically a Fate fanboy xDU) and even the likes of Deville of Huckebein have recognized the outstanding talent our beloved blonde have as a close-fighter. Even Fern Corrado, the old lady that beats she and Nanoha recognized that she taken advantage of certain conditions in order to beat the two Aces and is the homwork of the girls discovering what's the meaning of that so they can improve as warriors and persons.

Second. Signum's style of non-lethaly defeating an opponent probably involve maimin and amputting limbs from her opponents, or slicing them so they can still be alive enough time to take the core before the victim dies. Signum found that Fate is not only a talented warrior but also a noble child with a valid purpouse for fighting, that summed up with Hayate's influence on the Knight of the Sword probably pushed her to hold back even more than usual to avoid severly injuring the charming blonde.

Third. Even with all the experience in the world there are thing like timing, stamina, motivation, styles. In shorter words "curcunstances". As i mentioned in another post, Fate seemd to be exactly one of the kind of opponents Signum have the most troubles fighting with. the only time we saw Signum fighting Nanoha the Blazing General seemed to be much more confident and effective in dealing with the Ace of Aces, constantly pressuring her as also doing well placed set ups and counter attacks, something probably she can't pull off freely againt Fate. Signum still have an edge over Testarossa but Fate have various elemnts in their favour that allow her to put up a decen challenge to the pink swordswoman.

On the topic of the accumulated experience, i agree with Keroko in that is a blurr point. Canon wasn't explicity stated that but most fanfiction seemed to agree in that the Wolkenritter indeed has accumulated experience over the centuries. Canon also seems to reference to this as a fact sometimes(Vita clearly remebering the past in Vivid. Signum and Zafira taken for great instructors with valuable knowledge and experience, the Saint Church treating the existence of the Wolkenritter as invaluable historical figures). But never a clear statement. But hey! that allows more chance to play with the possibilities.

Now that we're talking about the Wolkenritter i want to propose another topic...

What do you think about the Wolkenritter's degeneration Shamal mentioned in StrikerS? Do you think it's safe to assume that Force effectively revealed the effects of tha passing time on the Wolkenritter's deteriorating condition?

When she left, Reinforce Eins left Hayate with her essence, which included the Cloud Knight system.

If any of the Wolkenritter died, Hayate could resurrect them; any lesser injuries would be rapidly healed without consequence. If Hayate died, they would remain alive, but would lose their regeneration and immortality.

However, without Reinforce to manage that program, it deteriorated. Ten years later, as of StrikerS, and the program is mostly gone.

Whether or not the program is responsible for their inhuman toughness (taking a scythe through the chest, bleeding out everything, and still fighting strong) is unknown. It's highly probable, though.

Considering both Signum and Vita were taken down in Force by much less than she has experienced in the past. It's higly possible that their former inhuman toughness where connected to said system. It's not completely gone(which explains how Signum survived being nearly quadrasected and being not only able to walk but even to fight, if a bit diminished) but they seem to be less and less tough with each passing season.

Discover dimensional travel. Currently the status quo seems to be "they don't bother us, so we don't bother them" but if earth learns how to travel between dimensions, they will get involved eventually.

If someone can't be anything more than a local problem, they leave it alone.

The Jewel Seeds and Book of Darkness had the potential to become NON-local problems, since the first could take out more than just Earth, and the second would move on to another world if not stopped.

The TSAB doesn't do anything about the conflict on Orussia, much as they'd like to, because as long as Lost Logia or dimensional technology isn't involved in the civil war, the problem is strictly localized.

Of course, one of the quickest ways to discovering dimensional travel would be knowing about and exploring the existence of magic.

So if Earth did that, it would -- as happened in one fanfic -- turn into what Midchildans call "The Second Orussia". A planet wracked by "civil" conflict using mass weapons, and the dimensional technology to make problems for everyone else.

Maybe the TSAB isn't adverse to "uplifting" certain worlds which are obviously less problematic, but they are far too understaffed to go elevating other worlds into the club willy-nilly.

Has the role of genetics been brought up? Most characters bear resemblance to relatives except fate and to lesser part Nove.

__________________

For those that belittle their favorite characters, complain about pairings, complain about oversexed images. Stop, thank you.

Fear Anxiety Doubt is but a fad. The life of a fad depends entirely on the willingness to support it. Difficulty is a choice. Determination is a path. Your next great idea after your destination is the true goal.

For those that belittle their favorite characters, complain about pairings, complain about oversexed images. Stop, thank you.

Fear Anxiety Doubt is but a fad. The life of a fad depends entirely on the willingness to support it. Difficulty is a choice. Determination is a path. Your next great idea after your destination is the true goal.

For those that belittle their favorite characters, complain about pairings, complain about oversexed images. Stop, thank you.

Fear Anxiety Doubt is but a fad. The life of a fad depends entirely on the willingness to support it. Difficulty is a choice. Determination is a path. Your next great idea after your destination is the true goal.